A man who was abducted as a six-year-old while playing in a California park in 1951 has been found more than seven decades later thanks to the help of an online ancestry test, old photos and newspaper clippings.

The Bay Area News Group reported on Friday that Luis Armando Albino’s niece in Oakland – with assistance from police, the FBI and the justice department – located her uncle living on the US east coast.

Albino, a father and grandfather, is a retired firefighter and Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, according to his niece, 63-year-old Alida Alequin. She found Albino and reunited him with his California family in June.

On 21 February 1951 a woman lured the six-year-old Albino from the park in West Oakland, where he had been playing with his older brother, and promised him in Spanish that she would buy him candy.

Instead, the woman kidnapped the Puerto Rico-born boy, flying him to the east coast, where he ended up with a couple who raised him as if he were their own son, the news group reported. Officials and family members didn’t say where on the east coast he lives.

For more than 70 years, Albino remained missing but he was always in the hearts of his family and his photo hung at relatives’ houses, his niece said. His mother died in 2005 but never gave up hope that her son was alive.

Oakland police acknowledged that Alequin’s efforts “played an integral role in finding her uncle” and that “the outcome of this story is what we strive for”.

In an interview with the news group, she said her uncle “hugged me and said ‘Thank you for finding me’ and gave me a kiss on the cheek”.

Oakland Tribune articles from the time reported that police, soldiers from a local army base, the Coast Guard and other city employees joined a huge search for the missing boy. San Francisco Bay and other waterways were also searched, according to the articles. His brother, Roger Albino, was interrogated several times by investigators but stood by his story about a woman with a bandana around her head taking his brother.

The first notion that her uncle might be still alive came in 2020 when, “just for fun”, Alequin said, she took an online DNA test. It showed a 22% match with a man who eventually turned out to be her uncle. A further search at the time yielded no answers or any response from him, she said.

Early this year, she and her daughters began searching again. On a visit to the Oakland public library she looked at microfilm of Tribune articles – including one that had a picture of Luis and Roger – which convinced her that she was on the right track. She went to Oakland police the same day.

Investigators eventually agreed the new lead was substantial, and a new missing persons case was opened. Oakland police said last week that the missing persons case was closed, but they and the FBI considered the kidnapping investigation to still be open.

Luis was located on the east coast and provided a DNA sample, as did his sister, Alequin’s mother.

On 20 June, investigators went to her mother’s home, Alequin said, and told them both that her uncle had been found.

“We didn’t start crying until after the investigators left,” Alequin said. “I grabbed my mom’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was ecstatic.”

On 24 June, with the assistance of the FBI, Luis came to Oakland with members of his family and met with Alequin, her mother and other relatives. The next day Alequin drove her mother and her newfound uncle to Roger’s home in Stanislaus County, California.

“They grabbed each other and had a really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked,” she said, discussing the day of the kidnapping, their military service and more.

Luis returned to the east coast but came back again in July for a three-week visit. It was the last time he saw Roger, who died in August.

Alequin said her uncle did not want to talk to the media.

“I was always determined to find him, and who knows, with my story out there, it could help other families going through the same thing,” Alequin said. “I would say: don’t give up.”

A luxury yacht that fire officials say was loaded with “1,000 rounds of unspent ammunition and fireworks” has been captured on video sinking at a marina in California after bursting into flames. 

The Los Angeles County Fire Department says the incident involving the 100-foot-long vessel happened Thursday night and two people onboard managed to escape without injuries. 

“According to [the] boat owner, 1,000 rounds of unspent ammunition and fireworks [were] onboard,” the department wrote on X, before adding that the boat became “fully submerged.” 

Video taken at the scene showed firefighters spraying the boat with hoses as the flames engulfed multiple decks.  

After part of the fire was extinguished, two people can be seen standing on a dock and watching the smoldering yacht go underwater. 

“I saw it fully engulfed in flames and like many of us living here heard an explosion and saw fireworks coming off it, and more flames and then walked down here and captured video of it,” local resident Lynn Rose told NBC Los Angeles. 

The yacht was identified by the website Boat International as The Admiral, which it says was last listed for sale in 2018 for nearly $1 million. 

The ship has four cabins – each equipped with flatscreen televisions and en suite facilities – the website adds. 

The Los Angeles County Fire Department says it is reviewing the cause of the fire. 

Coast Guard crews that arrived on scene installed around 2,000 feet of boom to contain nearly 4,000 gallons of diesel that leaked from the yacht during the fire, according to NBC Los Angeles. 

At the edge of their campground in Yellowstone National Park in June, Susanne and her husband, Benjamin “Bennangy” Anguiano, gazed at the lodgepole pine tree forest. The ground was covered with piles of broken branches and dry, old trees that had fallen on top of each other.

The Anguianos felt overwhelmed and distraught: Somewhere in that forest was their small, brownish seal point Siamese cat that had run off from the Fishing Bridge RV Park.

For five days the couple searched the area, calling out for their 2-year-old cat named Rayne Beau (pronounced “rainbow”). They used cat food and toys to try and lure him back.

But it would be weeks before they would reunite with their beloved pet, a tearful reunion that by some miracle would also take place hundreds of miles west in California.

There is no shortage of stories about pets traveling great distances to get home. In 2012, a black Labrador named Bucky walked 500 miles from Virginia to South Carolina, eventually reuniting with his owner.

Hollywood has even made movies about them — take 1993’s “Homeward Bound,” in which an American bulldog, a golden retriever and a Himalayan cat make their way through the Sierra Nevada to San Francisco to reunite with their family.

And now, there’s Rayne Beau.

Although it has been a month since the cat returned home, it wasn’t until this weekend that the Anguianos felt comfortable enough to talk about the incident, in part because they want to know if anyone helped the cat travel more than 800 miles from Yellowstone to California.

In a phone interview Friday, Susanne Anguiano said everything began June 4 when the couple arrived at the campground. She said she was trying to transfer Rayne Beau and his sister, Star, a flame point Siamese cat, from the truck to the traveling trailer.

Anguiano said she was untangling the cats’ leashes when Rayne Beau jumped out of the vehicle, slipping out of his collar before dashing toward the forest.

“I screamed,” she said. “I swear, I think the whole campground heard me.”

She ran after Rayne Beau, leaving the truck door open and the other cat behind. She said her husband shut the door to prevent the other cat from escaping.

She said Rayne Beau ran under a log, where she tried to scoop him up, but that caused him to run off again, this time deeper into the woods. Eventually, she lost sight of him.

The next day they reported the cat missing with the ranger’s office, providing a photo.

“Every morning I went out for an hour and called,” she said. “Even his sister, from the safety of the screen door of the trailer, meowed for him.”

The couple spent days searching the forest, calling out for him, trying to entice him with tuna and toys well into the night.

“But he never showed up,” she said. “Then came the day when we had to leave and that was horrible.”

“It felt like I was abandoning him,” she said.

As their truck pulled out of the campground on June 8, Anguiano looked out the window, crying, calling and scanning the road.

“I knew it was hopeless to do that but I did it anyway,” she said.

The ride home was somber. The couple didn’t talk, and Star clung to Susanne. She worried about Rayne Beau getting stuck in a tree or falling from one. Would he starve? No, she told herself, there were plenty of mice he could live off.

Susanne Anguiano took a sighting of a double rainbow in the Nevada desert as a sign of hope.

(Benjamin and Susanne Anguiano)

As they were entering the Nevada desert, the couple saw a double rainbow. For Anguiano, it was a sign that their cat was safe.

“I’m a Christian and I was praying the whole time,” she said. “God told me: ‘I have him safe,’ and that’s what I hung on to.”

It was July 31 and Alexandra Betts had arrived at her job at Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville, Calif. It was hot and temperatures were in the triple digits, she recalled. She was making her way from the parking lot to the hospital when she heard yowling coming from some bushes.

Betts said it sounded like a cat in heat or in labor, so she walked over to take a look. There, she noticed saw a small brownish cat near a storm drain.

She stayed with it for a few minutes before going into work. Her co-workers told her the cat had been there for days and likely belonged to someone nearby. Betts didn’t buy that. A cat yowling and in the same spot for days didn’t seem right to her.

Alexandra Betts found a panting cat during triple-digit temperatures in Roseville, Calif. She took it home and posted pictures in hopes of finding the owner.

(Alexandra Betts)

She checked in with her sister, who once worked at an animal shelter, and learned that cats that yowled were either in distress, in heat or lost.

Betts ordered cat food from DoorDash. On her lunch break, she went out to feed it.

“I could tell it was a house cat of some kind because it could register what the sound of a can opening was,” she said.

But the hot weather was starting to take its toll on the cat. Betts said it was panting, and she felt she needed to bring the cat home.

Betts was no stranger to helping animals. She owned a cat herself and often fostered many felines for many years. The next day, a Thursday, she brought the cat home in a carrier.

That night, she said, she took photos and uploaded them to the Facebook account for Roseville Lost and Found Pets.

The cat stayed with the family until Saturday, snuggling and playing.

“It was just the sweetest cat,” Betts said. “My son wanted to keep him but I told him: ‘if your cat Ninja got out, how would you feel if you never got to see him again?’”

She told him they needed to do everything they could to get the cat back to its owner.

On Aug. 3, she took the cat to the Placer Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville. She updated her post on Facebook that day to let people know where she took the cat.

Betts took more photos of the cat after bringing it home, where she said it loved to cuddle. Her son wanted to keep it, but she took it to a shelter so it could have a chance of being reunited with its owners.

(Alexandra Betts)

Advertisement

Leilani Fratis, chief executive with Placer SPCA, said the cat was in fairly good condition when it arrived at the shelter. She said staff immediately scanned the pet for a microchip, and it had one.

“What’s really incredible is that we get over 1,000 cats that come through our shelter,” she said. “Only 23 are ever reunited with their owners and of that number, a teen of them are microchipped.”

“Microchipping is especially important for cats,” she added, “as it can be hard to keep a collar on them.”

She hoped the story will encourage more people to microchip their pets if they haven’t done so.

It was Saturday afternoon when Susanne Anguiano got the call, but she didn’t pick up. The number didn’t show up as Placer SPCA. In fact, the shelter had to call her daughter to inform them of the news.

Even then, Anguiano didn’t believe it. She thought it was a scam. She Googled the number to make sure it matched that of Placer SPCA in Roseville.

She called them and asked if they had Rayne Beau. They told her they did. She asked them to describe the cat and they did that too.

As she was on the phone, her husband walked in and told her he had received a text message that Rayne Beau had been found.

“Wait, is this really happening?” she recalled telling herself.

She said her husband asked the shelter to provide photos. When they received them, the couple was stunned: It was Rayne Beau.

“Eight weeks of hoping and praying just came full circle,” she said. “We were blown away, we hugged and cried, it was just so surreal.”

The next morning, they drove to Roseville, about four hours from their home in Salinas. They walked into the shelter and reunited with Rayne Beau.

Shortly after, Anguiano said she took the cat to the vet.

“He was so skinny,” she said. “He had lost 40% of his body weight.”

She said his blood work showed low protein levels, and the pads on his paws were dry, cracked and calloused, proof that he had spent a lot of time on his own.

Anguiano said they wanted to thank the person who had found their cat but for privacy reasons the shelter couldn’t release that information.

A few days later, however, her husband stumbled upon Betts’ Facebook post. They were able to thank her and provide some details of the story.

“She’s the only one who did something,” she said. “She’s our hero, our angel.”

Betts was elated to hear that the family had reunited with their pet. She was also happy that she decided to help Rayne Beau after learning about his long journey.

“I think everything lined up perfectly for it to work out the way it was supposed to work out.”